Tag: expat

A recent survey My Yellow Brick Road conducted by The Western Union Company (NYSE:WU) reaffirms that migrant professionals residing in Saudi Arabia feel secure, happy and fulfilled in the kingdom due to a wide variety of reasons.

There are 151 people participated aged 30 years in average, in the survey throughout Saudi Arabia. 46 percent think that safety is the key reason of their satisfaction, 44 percent think comfort of friendships is the best reason, while 34.6 percent think comfortable lifestyle in the kingdom is best reason.

Participants said they had collectively achieved several goals, Money savings (54.6 per cent), a better lifestyle (38 per cent), buying a home (37.5 per cent), and paying for education (32 per cent).Read More …

Saudi Ministry of Labor (MoL) will impose various fines on employers / companies who are unable to follow new regulations. Below is the summary of these fines under new regulations, please note we have compiled this for information sharing purpose only, you may visit actual news site for further clarification.

SR 2,000 fine on employer on keeping passport of employee with him.

SR 3,000 fine under wage protection program on companies who are unable to pay salaries on-time to their workers. This amount of fine will be for each unpaid worker. Furthermore workers will be allowed to transfer their services to another company without the need of approval from current employer. Wage protection program will be compulsory for companies who are having at least 11 workers and a maximum of 100 workers on Feb 2016.

SR 5,000 fine on employer if he did not provide a copy of contract to his workers.

SR 10,000 fine on employer for offering such a job to male worker which is restricted for female worker.Read More …

Saudi Arabian Govt has provided a helpline for expatriates to discuss and solve their problems, register complaints against abuse of law by sponsors or anyone else.

Expatriates can call this number 19911 and submit their complaint in a variety of languages available from Saturday to Thursday. Currently available languages are Arabic, English, urdu, Hindi, Indonesian, Amharic, Malayalam and Tagalog.

QSaudi Blog has created a very useful graphic for this purpose which can be seen below.

So if you are an expat in Saudi Arabia and you are having any difficulty regarding labor law, abuse of law or any other issues related with your company or sponsor feel free to dial this number and authorities will guide you to the possible solution.

Update: 30-Oct-2014 10:55 am
In a recent statement to Arab News, undersecretary for Labor policies at the Labor Ministry said

expatriate women teachers on dependent visa (house wife iqama) can work at private schools without transferring their sponsorship to the school, This decision has been taken to tackle shortage of female teachers at private schools. Instead of issuing new teacher’s visas and source them from abroad Ministry decided to take advantage of locally available skilled female teachers. This will require a formal approval from the MoE (Ministry of Education) for each individual candidate.

Expatriate Dependents can now work in Saudi Arabia at private organizations or International Schools without transferring their sponsorship to their employers, Saudi Gazette newspaper has reported. This decision by Ministry of Labor will allow local community schools or private schools to hire wives or daughters of expatriate workers who are already living in Saudi Arabia but unable to work due to their iqama status, which previously not allow them to work.

This will reduce amount of foreign manpower required for local education system and help utilize existing manpower which is available here in the form of expatriate dependents.
Expatriate dependents which are previously living in Saudi Arabia but unable to take part in development of country can now easily join hands with locals and can utilize their education and talent to bring prosperity in education sector of Saudi Arabia.

I am emphasizing more on education because this sector lacks qualified staff and private schools are already taking benefit of expatriate dependents but in an illegal way (because govt does not allow dependents to work). However current move on MOL will bring a good change in local education system and it will make more and more qualified people available for hiring in schools and other organizations.

Dependents have to register with Ministry’s Ajeer Service which will be monitored by MoE (Ministry of Education)

Schools in Saudi Arabia were always having problems in recruitment of female teachers because their guardians aren’t ready for transferring their sponsorship to schools. Now under monitoring of MoE female teachers can easily work in schools without need to transfer sponsorship (iqama) to school and schools will be responsible for their medical insurance.

As per Saudi Labor Law, daily working hours cannot exceed 8 hours so the same will be effective for female teachers. Additionally female teachers are entitled to 21 days paid annual leave.

There are further benefits for pregnant working females. They can have a maximum of 10 weeks maternity leave. They have a right to get 1 hour break for breast-feeding their children. Furthermore employer cannot fire a female during maternity leave and the employer will be responsible for all medical expenses for the pregnant female teachers. These are some great benefits female teachers will get, Thanks to Saudi Arabian Govt.

If you are not familiar with how to get your family in Saudi Arabia, read this post.